“The news that Iceland has regained its investment
grade rating - with unemployment down to 6pc - comes
as a timely reminder that countries can indeed go it
alone and live to tell the tale. Though of course, Iceland’s
debts are in sovereign krona, not Mr Schäuble's
euro, and Iceland exports a lot of aluminium.”

“Mr Daskalopoulos now seems resigned to a ghastly
denouement, fearing that Greece has been turned into
a "useful victim" for countries pursuing their
own political agenda. "They need to stop pretending
that Greece is a special case and decide once and for
all what they are going to do with all the culprits
or PIGS [Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain] and what
they want Europe itself to be. Are they really going
to flush Greece down the toilet and hope it will disappear
from planet earth?" he said.”

“The US, Canada, Britain, France, Greece,
and other signatories at the London Debt Agreement of
1953 granted Chancellor Konrad Adenauer a 50pc haircut
on all German debt, worth 70pc in relief with stretched
maturities. There was a five-year moratorium on interest
payments.

“The express purpose was to give Germany enough
oxygen to rebuild its economy, and to help hold the
line against Soviet overreach. This sweeping debt forgiveness
caused heartburn for the British - then in dire financial
straits, themselves forced to go cap in hand to Washington
for loans. The Greeks had to forgo some war reparations.

“Yet statesmanship prevailed. The finance ministers
of the day agreed to overlook the moral origins of that
debt, and the moral hazard of “rewarding”
a country that had so disturbed the European order.

“The Wirtschaftswunder whittled down the burden
of German debts to modest levels within a decade. Germany
emerged as a vibrant democracy and a pillar of the western
security system.

“Greece has less strategic relevance, and must
comply with tougher terms.”

“At the beginning of the Clinton administration
in the early 1990s, adviser James Carville was stunned
at the power the bond market had over the government.
If he came back, Carville said: I used to think if there
was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president
or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want
to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate
everybody.”
[Quoted from Wall Street Journal, February 25, 1993,
p. A1]

“ "It’s not the end of the world
if someone leaves the eurozone," said Neelie Kroes,
the European Commission vice-president, uttering in
public a view already prevalent in Berlin and other
northern capitals as Greek rescue costs rise by a further
€15bn to €145bn.

“ "It’s always said, if you let one
nation go, or ask one to leave, the entire structure
will collapse. But that is just not true," she
told De Volksrant.

“Greece’s EU commissioner Maria Damanaki
said "contingency plans" are now under way
for a Greek withdrawal. "The policy for Greece
is internal devaluation within the eurozone but there
is preparation for other solutions, if Greece doesn’t
make it on the euro zone path," she said.”

Oh, 80 billion euro, is that all? No
worries then!

“Foreign banks have slashed exposure to Greece
by 60pc to €80bn since 2009...”

“It is simply not acceptable that Britain is
unable to deport radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada who
"poses a serious risk to our national security",
Home Secretary Theresa May said today.

“Mrs May said she disagreed with a senior immigration
judge's decision to bail Abu Qatada yesterday, which
means he will be free and walking his child to school
within a week.

“ "The right place for a terrorist is a
prison cell; the right place for a foreign terrorist
is a foreign prison cell far away from Britain,"
Mrs May said.”

“It is simply not acceptable that after the
Jordanians have guaranteed his treatment, after British
courts have found that he is dangerous and after his
removal has been approved by the highest courts in our
land, we still cannot deport such a dangerous foreign
national. We continue to consider the case for a British
Bill of Rights, and the Prime Minister is leading the
Government’s attempts to reform the European Court
of Human Rights.”
[Quoted from Hansard,
HC Deb, 7 February 2012, c165]

“It is a revolt against a 1930s policy that
imposes all the burden of adjustment on the debtor states
and fails to recognise that North-South imbalances must
be closed from both ends, and ultimately condemns all
EMU to ruinous slump.”
—
“The half-century habits of Franco-German condominium
die hard. It is a painful process for French elites
to admit that monetary union is asphyxiating their economy
and must inevitably trap France in mercantilist subordination
to Germany.”

Sarkozy doing a John Major and destroying
the credibility of the Right.